by Claire Cook
Finally, my sister blew her nose and took a long, ragged breath. “And the day after tomorrow I turn fifty,” she whispered. “That’s why they fired me, you know.”
“They can’t do that. That’s age discrimination. I think we should sue.”
Geri blew out a puff of air and sounded almost like my sister again. “No, not because I was turning fifty.” She shook her head. “Because I might have been a tiny bit obsessed with turning fifty.”
It slipped out before I thought it through. “Ya think?”
She reached up and tilted the rearview mirror toward her. “Why didn’t you tell me my eyes looked like this?”
I got my focus back. “You look fine,” I lied.
She lifted her head to get another angle. “How did I get this old? You know, I can see it already. I’m going to get one of those saggy necks like a turtle. Who would hire someone with a turtle neck?”
“I think it’s called a turkey neck. Grampa used to have one, remember?”
“Great.” Geri started counting off on her fingers. “I’m about to turn fifty. I don’t have a job. My husband never looks at me anymore. I have a pre-turkey neck.” Geri sighed dramatically. “You don’t know how lucky you are, your whole life stretched out in front of you.”
When she buried her head in her hands, she looked a little bit like Manny, which probably meant she’d been wallowing long enough. I looked at my watch. “Wow, do you know how long we’ve been gone? Riley’s going to wonder what happened to us.”
Geri’s lower lip started going again. “See,” she sobbed, “I’m not even a good mother anymore.”
“You’re a great mom,” I said. I patted her shoulder.
She found a tissue and blew her nose. “You’re a great aunt. The best, really.”
“Well,” I said. “The good thing is, now I definitely know I’m never having kids. They really turn on you fast, don’t they?”
“That was nothing,” she said. “You’ve got the easy one. Try living with Rachel and Becca sometime. Especially now that Riley’s here and they’re not.”
“COME WITH ME,” I said after we checked on Riley. “I just have to return this.” I was hoping I could tiptoe into the electrical trailer, drop off the drill and the goggles, and then fade into the background somewhere. Tim Kelly had a busy life. He probably wouldn’t even notice I was gone.
We walked along the row of trailers in the parking lot until I found the right one. I tiptoed up the steps and put the drill and goggles down on the first shelf I came to. I thought about leaving a short note, but what would I say? Dear Tim, Thanks for letting me borrow the drill. It worked great. P.S. About that kiss . . .
I ran back down the trailer steps. Tim Kelly and Geri looked up. “So,” Geri said. “It’s about time I got to meet your gaffer.”
“Your sister looks just like you,” Tim Kelly said. “Does this mean you can go out tonight?”
“Oh, thanks,” I said. “That’s so nice of you. But my sister just got here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Geri said. “She’d love to.”
“Great,” Tim Kelly said. “How about an hour after we wrap for the day? I just need time for a quick shower.”
“Perfect,” Geri said.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby, Ginger.” Tim Kelly held out his hand to my sister. “Nice meeting you, Geri.”
Chapter 23
I WAITED UNTIL TIM KELLY WAS OUT OF EARSHOT. “I can’t believe you did that,” I said. “And you accused me of acting like I was Riley’s mother? News flash: You’re not my mother. Or my pimp, for that matter.”
“Oh, please. Like I’ll ever make any money on you.”
We left the parking lot and stepped onto the sand. “I can’t believe you interfered in my personal life like that. It’s not your business.”
“You should go out with him. He’s a nice guy.”
“Oh, right. You know him so well. What did you talk to him for, thirty seconds?”
“He’s really cute. Great eyes.”
I bent down and picked up a piece of sea glass. “So, why don’t you go out with him then? Maybe Noah and I can double with you or something.”
“Oh, sure. Like Noah would go on a real date.”
I stood up again and started walking. Fast.
Geri caught up with me and grabbed my arm. “Guess what? I decided what I want to do for my birthday.”
I hoped it wasn’t going to involve any more crying. This nurturing stuff was really exhausting. “What?”
She slid her sunglasses down her nose and looked over them. “Do you think they’d let me be an extra if you tell them it’s almost my birthday?”
“Geri, over here,” Allison Flagg yelled. She patted the picnic table she and her groupies had taken over. “Sit with us.”
She’d been here for mere minutes and already my sister was Miss Popularity.
“Come on,” Geri said. She put her arm around me and brought me into the group the way she sometimes used to when her high school friends were over and I didn’t have anybody to play with.
We sat down and everybody who hadn’t bothered introducing themselves to me earlier introduced themselves. Geri was twiddling her thumbs, I noticed. It seemed like a clear case of CrackBerry withdrawal. Maybe I’d have to get her a pair of knitting needles and some yarn for her birthday.
“So,” Geri said. “Ginger’s going to try to get me on as an extra for my fiftieth birthday.”
“Good luck,” one of the women said.
“What do you mean?” Geri asked.
“Everybody wants to be an extra,” she said.
Allison Flagg reached down and plucked a stray piece of beach grass. “Little sister might be able to make it happen. That gaffer can’t get enough of her.”
“I know what I’ll do,” I said, just to get out of there. “I’ll go ask Manny. I bet he’d do anything for Riley’s mom.”
“Shh,” Allison Flagg said. “They’re starting.”
“Quiet,” somebody was saying as I sat on the sand and casually started to slide my way down to Manny. I passed the high tide line, where there was a pretty good assortment of sea glass tucked in with the patches of broken shells and seaweed. I picked up some really teeny pieces, so small I hoped they wouldn’t get lost in my pocket. Maybe I could find a way to collage them all together and make a pin, kind of like the button pin I’d seen at Sand, Sea and Sky, but beachy.
Manny pushed himself out of his chair and adjusted his baseball cap. “Okay,” he yelled down to Riley, “when I say action, you’re going to look down and see what’s left of your arm for the first time.”
Riley nodded. “What am I feeling?” he asked.
“Goddamn method actors,” one of the people in the chairs whispered, and the people in the other chairs laughed quietly.
Manny ignored them and took a couple of steps toward Riley. “Shock, horror, revulsion, and then maybe it deepens to just a touch of morbid fascination.”
“Cool,” Riley said.
“Marker,” somebody said.
“Rolling,” somebody else said.
“Action,” Manny Muscadel said.
Everybody watched in silence as Riley looked down at his fake arm and his eyes widened in horror. “Cut,” Manny said. “Print. Let’s do one more just to be sure we’ve got it.”
Manny walked back and stood next to me. “He’s amazing,” he said. “You just see the kid. You don’t see the actor at all.”
I looked up at Manny from my seat on the sand. I wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you think it’s because he’s not an actor?”
Manny looked down at me for a long moment. “That’s a really good point,” he finally said.
This was my opportunity. I widened my own eyes, going for pleading and hard-to-say-no-to. “Sorry to bother you, but Riley would really like it if his mother could be an extra. For her fiftieth birthday. You know, he hasn’t had a lot of time to shop, what with the movie and everything
. It could be sort of like a birthday present?”
“Fine,” he said. “Tell the background guy I said it was okay.”
I couldn’t stop myself. “Me, too?” I asked.
“It never ends,” he said. I waited for him to bury his head in his hands, but he resisted. “All right. Just keep an eye out for my mother while you’re at it, will you? Make sure she doesn’t get trampled or anything.”
“Will do,” I said. I looked over at my sister and gave her a big thumbs-up.
WE FOUND THE EXTRAS GUY after lunch. He wasn’t overly receptive. “Isn’t that just dandy,” he said as he walked back and forth with his clipboard at breakneck speed. “Good thing I always save a few slots so nobody gets left out on their birthday. Jesus. I gotta tell you, Manny Muscadel is going to be shooting wedding videos when this is over.”
“Throw in a cake and some pony rides and you could probably have a sweet little side business,” I suggested. It was actually not a bad idea. I had to remind myself to stay focused on my sea glass. And my sister.
The extras guy unhooked his walkie-talkie from his belt loop. “Don’t start,” he said. “And don’t make me regret this. We’ve got the background holding set up over there. Act like you know what you’re doing.”
“Now?” Allison Flagg asked. She was standing beside my sister, practically holding her hand. “Don’t we get to go to makeup first?”
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Geri said I could come,” she whispered back. “It’s her birthday present.”
“I don’t have to wear a bathing suit, do I?” Geri asked the extras guy.
He conked himself on the head with the clipboard. “Of course not, honey. Wear your favorite snowsuit. You’ll fit right in.” He turned and race-walked off.
Fortunately we got to keep on our shorts and T-shirts, though lots of people were wearing bathing suits. A tiny part of me still wanted to be discovered, but not necessarily in my bathing suit. It seemed that the plan was for the crowd to surge forward on the beach when Riley started to scream. Apparently the movie was in no danger of acquiring a plot. It also seemed like it might take the rest of the year to set up the shot, since it involved a camera backing uphill over a dolly track in the sand.
As we walked over to the holding tent, Geri pointed to a section of beach that was marked with caution tape and surrounded by lots of people. “Is that where the shark is?” she whispered.
I looked. “I’m not sure. If it has any brains at all, it’s already taken off again to try to find a better movie.”
The extras looked just like normal people, which I supposed was the point. Everybody was sitting around in folding chairs under the tent, drinking bottled water and fanning themselves.
“Well, this is fun,” Allison Flagg said about five minutes later.
I was just about to say, Well, who invited you?, when Geri’s cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her bag and said hello. I knew it wasn’t a BlackBerry, but I was glad she still had something.
Geri walked to the edge of the tent to take her call, and Allison Flagg and I ignored each other. I wished I’d planned ahead and brought some earring-making supplies, but I had to settle for turning my chair sideways so I could see and digging in the sand with my toe. I found a big fat piece of light green sea glass and bent over to pick it up. Tim Kelly walked by and I pretended not to notice.
“That was Seth,” Geri said when she came back. “He wanted to know where I’d like to have my birthday dinner when he and the girls get here Friday.”
“That’s all you’re going to do?” Allison Flagg said. “Isn’t this your fiftieth?” It might have been my imagination, but it seemed like she was sending some accusatory energy my way. I kept digging for sea glass.
“It’s fine, really,” Geri said. “Being an extra is plenty. I’ll be immortalized on celluloid at fifty.” She ran her hand up and down her neck. “Do you think all this flabby stuff will show?”
Allison Flagg leaned forward. “What flabby stuff? I don’t see anything. You look great. Nobody would ever guess you were almost fifty.”
“Thanks,” Geri said.
I kept digging. When we were kids, we used to try to dig all the way to China. It would be nice to still believe it was possible.
The extras guy clapped his hands. “Okay, background. In your places, everybody. And turn those cell phones off and keep them off.”
“THEY’RE KILLING ME HERE,” Manny said. “I can’t believe the studio took away my crane shot.”
“It’s not what you got, it’s how you make it work for you,” Riley said.
“Thanks, kiddo,” Manny said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Riley turned and rolled his eyes at the twins, and they both started to giggle.
Some people came over to sweep the sand off the dolly track again. Riley went back into the water, and the extras guy yelled, “Places,” even though we’d already been in our places for what felt like a couple of centuries.
“Picture’s up and clear.”
“Rolling.”
“Marker.”
“Action.”
My heart started beating like crazy and my legs wobbled a little as I pretended to talk with Geri and Allison Flagg. Being an actor was much harder than I had thought it would be. I was waiting for Riley’s scream, but it still took me by surprise. My heart actually skipped a beat, and then started racing. I don’t know whose side of the family he got it from, but he sure had one bloodcurdling scream.
We all turned and started surging toward the water.
“Cut!” Manny yelled from the top of the beach.
We did it again. And again. And again. Over and over, with the hot afternoon sun beating down on us. The extras were like a big flock of sheep, and the extras guy was the shepherd, nipping at our heels to keep us in place until Manny finished getting his shots. I only hoped it would happen in this lifetime.
In between takes one zillion and one zillion and one or so, Geri leaned over and whispered, “I am so over this. Do you think anybody would notice if we left?”
The extras guy had good ears for a shepherd. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “I’ve already signed your vouchers.” He clapped his hands together and yelled, “Places, everybody.”
“By the way,” I asked him, “which one is Manny’s mother? I’m supposed to keep an eye on her.”
“Let me see,” he said. “It’s hard to keep the family members separate from the birthday parties.” He put his hands on his hips and looked around. He pointed to a woman in a bikini. “That one,” he said before he walked off again.
“Ohmigod,” Geri said. “That’s Manny’s mother? I am seriously depressed. How old do you think she is?”
We all watched Manny’s mother for the next eight or ten takes, weighing good genes against probable surgeries, until Manny finally yelled, “Cut! Print!”
I licked my parched lips to make it easier to speak. “Well, Sis, happy birthday.”
Geri shook her head. “You know, I don’t think that was quite it. Your fiftieth is supposed to be memorable, and all I’m going to remember is Manny’s mother in that bathing suit.”
“I’ve got just the thing out in my car,” Allison Flagg said. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter 24
AS SOON AS I TURNED MY CELL PHONE BACK ON, IT started to ring. “Hi, Dad,” I said.
“Have you seen him?” my mother asked.
“Who?” I asked. For some strange reason, I thought she might have been talking about Noah.
“Your father.”
“Oh. Have you tried my apartment?”
“I’m there now.”
“Gee, just make yourself at home,” I said. I kicked the sand with my toe and reached down to pick up a sand dollar. I wondered if it would shatter if I tried to drill a hole in it.
“Thanks,” my mother said. “Listen, those kittens are making a real mess over here. They’re awful cute, though, I’ll
give them that.” I waited while my mother talked baby talk to the kittens. “What is our old rumpus room table doing over here anyway?”
“Ask Dad,” I said.
“I’ll have to find him first.”
Try the dump, I almost said, but I caught myself just in time. My mother would connect the dots soon enough. I waited while she talked some more baby talk to the kittens. I wondered if my father had given them names yet, or if he’d wait and let me help him decide. What would you name black and white kittens? Vanilla and Chocolate? Salt and Pepper? Ebony and Ivory? Opal and Onyx? Knock Knock and Who’s There?
“How’s your sister holding up?” my mother finally asked.
I tiptoed a few steps away from Geri. We were waiting for Riley to come out of special effects, where he was having his stump removed. She was twiddling her thumbs again, and her lower lip looked like it might start quivering at any moment. “One minute she’s up, the next she’s down,” I whispered.
“She’ll be fine,” my mother said. “And it will turn out to be an opportunity in disguise. Keep reminding her she can be anything she wants to be.”
“I don’t think I have to, Mom. She pretty much has it down by now.”
“Well, good. And don’t tell your sister, but we’ll be coming down with Seth and the girls to celebrate her birthday. Listen, your phone is ringing. I’d better get it in case it’s your father.”
I flipped my cell phone closed as soon as I heard the dial tone. “Who was that?” Geri asked.
“Just Mom,” I said. “She was looking for Dad.”
Geri raised her eyebrows.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “And she wanted to know how you were doing.”
Geri looked down at her twiddling thumbs as if they belonged to someone else. “What did you tell her?”